Is there no way, then, you may ask, in which the Head Keeper may be lured
from his customary silence for more than a sentence or two? Yes, there is
one absolutely certain method, and, so far as I know, only one. The subject
to which you must lead your conversation is--no, it isn't poachers, for a
good keeper takes the occasional poacher as part of his programme. He wages
war against him, of course; and, if his shooting happens to be situated
near a town of some importance, the war is often a very sanguinary one,
only ended by the extermination (according to Assize-Court methods) of the
poachers. But the keeper, as I say, takes all this as a matter of course.
He recognises that poachers, after all, are men; as a sportsman, he must
have a sneaking sympathy for one whose science and wood-craft often baffle
his own; and, therefore, though he fights against him sturdily and
conscientiously, and, as a rule, triumphs over him, he does not generally,
being what I have described him, brag of these victories, nor, indeed, does
he care to talk about them. "There, but for the grace of God, goes
Velveteens," must be the mental exclamation of many a good keeper when he
hears his enemy sentenced to a period of compulsory confinement. I do not
wish to be misunderstood. There are poachers and poachers. And whereas we
may have a certain sympathy for the instinct of sport that seems to compel
some men to match their skill against the craft of fur or feather reared at
the expense and by the labour of others, there can surely be none for the
methodical rogues who band themselves together on business principles, and
plunder coverts just as others crack cribs, or pick pockets. Even sentiment
is wasted on these gentlemen.
But I return from this digression. The one subject, then, on which a keeper
may be trusted to become eloquent, is, that of